Sunday, August 31, 2014

Trip to Florida

From Aug 21 – 25 we
traveled to Venice, Florida to visit Lezlie’s elderly parents. We had a
pleasant surprise when we arrived. Avis was out of compact cars so they
gave me a red Chrysler 200 convertible for the same price. It was fun to
take a few rides around Venice with the top down. But mostly we found
that the sun was so bright and hot that we just kept the top up. We found grandmother and papa (Lezlie’s
parents) doing just okay. They both have multiple health issues and are
finding it harder and harder to take care of the house and each other. We
tried to help out as much as we could. We
quickly made friends with their new cat Precious. She is a small calico who is very
sweet and friendly – she really loves people and grandmother and papa are
really enjoying her. We
immediately began taking care of several handyman jobs around the house, which
was not really work for me, just
fun. I fixed a hose, bought and installed a new pool filter, fixed a
trellis, worked with the sprinkler system, and resolved some issues with the
television. Lezlie glued down some floor tiles in the bathroom that
were peeling up and tripping papa. She
also fixed a broken hand on their large wall clock and gave Grandmother some
Facebook lessons. As was
expected, it was very hot in Florida, even worse than Virginia. The
humidity was tough there. One day I took papa out for breakfast and he
seemed to enjoy it very much. Even though he has multiple health
issues he has not lost his appetite, so he had a good breakfast. He had
eggs, hash browns, toast and pancakes! Later
that day Lezlie took grandmother out for lunch and shopping in old town
Venice. One evening we drove to the beach in the convertible to see the
sunset. It was a very nice evening, and we enjoyed being by the
water. Grandmother liked riding in the convertible. When I was out running errands one day I
saw two young elders on the street. It was about 98 degrees so I
gave them a ride, which was appreciated. They both were soaking wet with
sweat. These are the young missionaries that have stopped by grandmother
and papa's several times to visit and do service for them, so it was good to
meet them and thank them for helping grandmother and papa. Saturday
morning we attended a fundraiser for Hannah's volleyball team. It was
breakfast at Applebees, and Hannah acted as our waitress. We also got to
see Liz and David. Also Lindsay was there. She had driven from Tampa where she currently
lives. On Sunday grandmother attended church with us and it was a very
nice service. There were excellent talks about the blessings that come
from obeying the commandments. There
was also a beautiful special musical number, a solo by an alto with a gorgeous
voice. It was wonderful to
have her there with us and she seemed to enjoy the service. David, Liz
and Hannah visited Sunday evening and we had a small birthday party for
Hannah. She had turned 15 the week before. Everyone had a nice
time. Lezlie and I enjoyed playing with her two dogs, Benji and
Ariel. They are both small dogs and very smart. Hannah has taught
them many tricks. Although it was fun to play with them, it also made us
miss our dogs. Our flight home Monday afternoon was delayed for over two
hours because the pilot’s seatbelt was broken. They had to fly a new
seatbelt bracket in from Atlanta. As a result we missed our connection to
Washington DC, so we stayed overnight in Atlanta with Lisa and
Pete. So our airline difficulties turned out to be a blessing.
Even though it was a short visit, we had great fun visiting with Lisa and
Pete. So our trip to Florida was a
success. We got to help grandmother and
papa a lot, but best of all we got to have some unstructured time to just visit
with them and find out how they are doing.
It was a good visit.

As soon as we
returned home we swung right back into action.
We worked a long Wednesday shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. We had a good shift and helped out a few
marines. We also got to visit one of our
marine wives that just had a new baby girl.
We had done several things to help her out before the baby was born, so
it was wonderful to see her healthy new little girl. She and the baby are doing well.

On Friday I (Dan) did
a lot of driving. A lot! In the middle of each transfer cycle (6
weeks) a meeting is held called the Return and Report meeting. All of the brand new missionaries and their
senior trainers attend a meeting with the Mission President. He asks all of the new missionaries how their
first few weeks are going and separately asks the trainers how their new
trainees are doing. Anyway, I picked up
six elders early this morning and drove them all the way to Richmond and back
(about 200 miles). Although it was a lot
of driving, I love doing it. It is a
pleasure to be around these great young men, and long rides in the car lend
themselves to good conversations. I
heard about one young man’s dream to be a doctor, stories from another one that
swam competitively in high school, and heard about another one’s love of
music. It was wonderful. After all of that driving I got home to find
we were needed on the base. Our marine
family with no car needed to make a trip to get groceries. So we drove to the base and took care of
that. Thinking we would get home around
9pm and get to collapse onto our sofa and rest, we got another phone call
. The Zone Leaders, who are our ward’s
missionaries, are having a baptism tomorrow morning and needed to come over to
use our printer to print out baptism service programs. This is another one of the small ways that we
contribute to the mission. But it is
also fun when they come over and we enjoy visiting with them. They are on fire as far as missionary work
in our ward. They have had 33 baptisms
this year which is amazing. And there are
a lot of great new people in our ward because of them.

Our young bachelor
marine with the medical issues had his second surgery yesterday, so today,
Saturday, we drove to Wash DC to see him.
He did really well and we found him in good spirits. He said that his doctor reported that the
surgery was very successful. He had
teased us about sneaking in a “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” cheeseburger for
him. So as an alternative we brought him
a gift card to Five Guys and told him it was something to look forward to when
he recovers. He was eating jello and
broth today. It was good to see him
smiling and optimistic. He felt so bad
for so long that it was just wonderful to see him sort of come to life after
his first surgery. Today he seems even
better. He is glad to be 2/3 of the way
to having his problems taken care of.
Walter Reed hospital, where his surgery took place, is very near to the
Washington DC temple. So we went to the
temple for a couple of hours. The temple
is closing next week for a month so that the roof can be replaced. Also today is Saturday of Labor Day weekend. So, the temple was extremely crowded. We had planned on doing an hour of work, but
we would have had to wait for an hour to begin. So we just sat inside the
temple and looked at the giant mural in the entry hall. It is a very beautiful and inspirational painting. Then we took a long walk through the gardens
outside the temple. Beautiful! We returned for another short visit with our
young marine before heading home for the night.
We are so grateful to be able to support this young man and help him in
a small way while he is undergoing this difficult medical treatment so far away
from home and family.

Since we found out
that our young bachelor marine in the hospital had no family coming to visit we
decided to pay him another visit this Sunday morning. Our church service begins at 1:00pm so we
were able to drive to the hospital to see him in the morning. Our young friend is still doing well and was
much more animated and talkative today. I
think his anesthesia finally wore off. He
is glad to be eating semi-solid foods again like fruit and applesauce. Our relationship with him reminds me of
Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 – “Wherefore, be not weary in well doing for ye
are laying the foundation of a great work.
And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.” For six months all we did was take this young
marine out to lunch and dinner. At first
he hardly talked at all. Each time we
invited him he said yes and each time talked a little bit more. We thought we were not doing enough for him,
and simply taking him out for a meal seemed like an insignificant effort. But now he is turning to us for comfort and
talking to us about family, fears, and future dreams. He even told his folks that we were his local
grandparents, which brought us great joy.
We had excellent church services with good talks and lessons today. We got to sit by one of our female marines
that we had not seen for a while. It was
good to catch up with her. We were also
pleased to see one of our very young bachelor marines at church. He just arrived about a month ago and is a very
new member of the church. We were afraid
he would not make the effort to come to church, but he got a ride with another
member of the ward. It was a joy to see
him there. As we begin the month of
September we realize that we have reached a significant milestone. In two day we will reach the one year
anniversary of the day we reported to the MTC.
So much has happened in that year that it is hard to believe how quickly
the time has seemed to pass. A year ago
we could not have imagined the joy we find in serving others and in being simple
instruments in the hand of God. We are
just normal, average people that have this short period of time to dedicate
ourselves to serving others and thereby serving the Lord. It has brought us such fulfillment and
gratitude. We have been involved in so
many amazing things and have received so much.
We are grateful to be senior missionaries.